Escape from Five Shadows

1

Karla hesitated in the doorway of the adobe, then pushed open the screen door and came out into the sunlight as she heard again the faint, faraway sound of the wagon; and now she looked off toward the stand of willows that formed a windbreak along the north side of the yard, her eyes half closed in the sun glare and not moving from the motionless line of trees.

She waited for the wagon to appear-a girl not yet twenty, with clear dark eyes, a clean-lined delicately featured face that was brown from the sun, and black hair that suggested Spanish-Indian blood, though her hair was cut short, almost boyishly short, and brushed back from her temples; a girl wearing a man’s blue chambray shirt tucked into a gray skirt that fell almost to her rope-soled sandals.

Now she could hear the horses splashing over the creek that passed through the willows. The team and wagon appeared but the girl waited until the two riders who trailed the wagon came into view before she turned to the adobe.

“They’re coming now.”

Her father, John Demery, appeared in the doorway thumbing a suspender strap over his shoulder, up over long-sleeved woolen underwear. And now his face creased to an expression of almost pain as he looked off into the yellow-white sun glare. The willow trees added color to the scene and beyond them, towering, sloping out of the distance, the foothills of the Pinaleño Mountains were striped with the black shadow lines of barrancas and pine stands; but here on the flat land, looking straight out from the adobe east, then sweeping south, there was an unvarying sameness of mesquite and sun glare and the thin faint line of distant mountains was part of another world.

Demery’s long adobe, his corral and outbuildings, were here of necessity. On the Hatch & Hodges Stage Line map his place was indicated at Station #3 on the Central Mail run. Locally, it was the Pinaleño station-thirteen miles southeast of Fuegos, the nearest town; and six miles almost due south of the convict camp at Five Shadows.

The wagon now approaching the station was from the convict camp. Karla was certain of this from the moment she’d heard the first faint creaking sound from the willows. She kept her eyes on the wagon, watching the driver gradually turning the team to come in broadside to the adobe.

Now one of the riders, a shotgun across his pommel, spurred to swing in on the near side. As he did, Karla said, “Mr. Renda himself.”

Demery half turned from the door. “I’ll get the voucher. The sooner they’re out of here the better.” But he hesitated, looking out toward the wagon again. “Is your friend along?”

“I don’t know,” Karla answered, not looking around, her gaze still going out across the yard. “He could be one of those two in back. But I can’t see their faces yet.”

“Or their numbers,” Demery said. He turned back into the dimness of the adobe.

Frank Renda, with the shotgun, was coming directly toward her; but the second rider crossed the yard diagonally and remained on the far side of the wagon. He carried a Winchester straight up, the stock resting on his thigh and his hand gripping it through the lever.

The two men whom Karla could not yet see, who sat in the back of the empty wagon with their legs hanging over the end gate, and the driver, looked toward the adobe as they drew nearer. They wore curl-brimmed, preshaped straw hats. Their shirts and Levi’s were faded and sweat-stained and a number was stenciled on the right thigh of each of the three men’s Levi’s. The same number was stenciled in back, below the beltline. The driver wore number 22; the men on the end gate, 17 and 18.

Frank Renda dismounted. He let his reins trail and came toward Karla carrying the shotgun under his arm-a man about her father’s age, in his mid-forties, but heavier than her father, thicker through chest and shoulders, and wearing a mustache, a full, untrimmed tobacco-stained mustache that almost completely covered the firm line of his mouth.

He stopped in front of Karla, blocking her view of the men in the wagon. He stood close to her, the shotgun barrel touching her skirt, but she didn’t move, not even her eyes, and she returned his gaze.

“Where’s my stuff, Karla?” He smiled saying this, but the smile was not in the sound of his voice.

“In the shed,” Karla answered.

Renda motioned toward the open shed that extended out from the east wall of the adobe. Karla saw the rider who was still mounted walk his horse toward it, his Winchester across his pommel now. Then, as the wagon moved on, passing close to her, she glanced at the two convicts on the end gate.

For a moment her eyes held on the man wearing number 18. She looked away then, quickly, her gaze going to the shed: feeling an unexpected excitement in seeing him and suddenly afraid it would show on her face.

She did not try to explain the feeling, for it was not something that could be reasonably explained, even to herself. This was the ninth time she had seen him. She was sure of that. Eight times in the past month, delivering mail to the convict camp, she had taken the trail down through the canyon and passed him on the new road. Riding along the stretch of road construction, passing the convicts and the guards, then seeing him, watching him until it would be obvious that she was watching and then she would look away.

Eight times this way and always with the feeling that she knew what he was thinking, knowing that he was watching the guards, following their moves and trying to locate the ten or twelve Apache trackers who were always mounted and always somewhere above the canyon but seldom in sight.

Each time she had wanted to say to him, “Please don’t try it. Please.” Again for a reason she did not even attempt to understand, though she wondered if others sensed his wanting to escape as strongly as she did.

That was part of it: the knowing what he was thinking. That and the feeling that she had known him a long time; as if he were a boy she had gone to school with in Willcox and had been close to and had seen every day and was now seeing again after a lapse of six or seven years. But, she had never laid eyes on him before a month ago and even now she did not know his name. This was the first time he had been brought to Pinaleño with the supply detail.

Now she watched Renda walking off after the wagon, seeing, beyond him, the wagon pulling up in front of the open shed.

She could feel the rider with the Winchester looking at her, but she did not raise her eyes to him. Her father had said that his name was Brazil-Renda’s head guard. And her father had said he was a gunman; a man paid purely and simply for his gun and probably deserved to be wearing a straw hat and numbered pants as much as any convict in the camp.

The driver was standing in the wagon bed now, his head even with the shed roof. He would stoop under it, into the straight-line shade of it to take the sacks of flour and dried beans and salt that the two men who had been on the end gate handed up to him. He would drag the sacks to the front of the wagon and stack them, taking his time, as if trying to make this last as long as possible. Now and again he would glance at Karla.

She noticed this, but most of the time her eyes remained on the convict wearing number 18.

His sleeves were cut off at the shoulders and she had never seen a man’s arms burned such a deep brown. Black copper, she thought. And in the shadow of his hatbrim his face seemed even darker. It went through the girl’s mind that with shoulder-length hair and features that were coarse he could pass for a San Carlos Apache. Still, even though she had never seen him without the straw hat, she knew his hair was sand colored, just as she knew his eyes would be blue.

At this moment she knew he was watching Renda and the one called Brazil. Not looking at them directly, but watching every move they made from the shadow of the curled hatbrim.

Karla half turned as the screen door opened. “He’s here,” she said, a trace of excitement in the tone of her voice.

Her father stepped out into the yard. He carried a Voucher for Supplies and Services Rendered, made out by Seely, Lewis & Foss, Government Contractors. As he looked toward the wagon he asked, “Which one?”

“He’s wearing 18.”

“I can’t make out figures from here.”

“The one without sleeves in his shirt.”

Demery squinted in the sunlight, studying the convict. “He looks like any other jailbird to me.”

“You have to see him up close,” Karla said.

“Why do you think he’s any different from the rest?”

“I don’t know…haven’t you ever had a feeling about a person?” She glanced at her father. “Like Ma…you liked her right away, didn’t you? You didn’t ask to see her papers before you married her.”

“You’re planning to marry him, are you?”

“I’m drawing a parallel.”

“Sis, the difference is I didn’t meet your mother in a convict camp.”

“How do you know why he’s there?” Karla said hotly. “For all we know he was hungry and killed somebody else’s cow. You can’t blame a man for something like that.”

Demery nodded. “Only maybe it wasn’t a cow,” he said mildly, glancing at Karla. “A nice-looking boy who doesn’t look like he should be in convict clothes, so you feel sorry for him.”

“It’s more than that,” Karla said earnestly. “But I can’t explain it.”

“Like getting a warm feeling for a boy at school.”

“You make it sound ridiculous.”

“Sis, that’s what I’m trying to do. You don’t even know his name.”

Karla looked at her father hopefully. “I was going to ask you to ask Mr. Renda.”

“What good would it do you to know it?”

“I was thinking of writing to Mr. Martz,” Karla said. “He’s in the courthouse every day. He could look up his record-”

“You’d write all the way to Prescott to find out why he’s in?”

“I can’t think of any other way.”

“Waste Lyall Martz’s valuable time on an errand like that-”

“He’d do it for me.”

“Sis, you’re sure of yourself. I’ll say that.”

“Don’t you think he would?”

“I’m not going to encourage you.”

Karla hesitated. “Will you ask Mr. Renda his name?”

Demery shook his head. “You might have a pure, kindly feeling about the boy, but don’t ask me to be a party to it.”

“Then you won’t.”

“Ask him yourself.”

“He’d think it was funny. A girl asking.”

“No funnier than me doing it. ‘Frank, what’s that boy’s name, number 18? Karla’s got a warm feeling for him, wants to know all about him.’ ”

Karla grinned. “Not like that. Just say you think you recognize him from somewhere. Or he looks like someone who used to work for you. I couldn’t tell Mr. Renda that, but you could.”

“With Frank’s shifty-eyed nature,” Demery said, “right away he’d suspect something.”

Karla winked at him. “Not the way you’d handle it, Pa. Smooth as silk.”

Demery eyed his daughter in silence. “You know where you ought to be? Up in Prescott with Lyall. He’d use you to soften up the juries.”

Karla smiled. “You’ll ask him?”

Demery looked off toward Renda who stood near the wagon watching the supplies being loaded. He called out, “Frank-” and as Renda turned, “Here’s your voucher!”

Renda left the wagon and as he reached them he said to Demery, “Don’t strain yourself.”

Demery moved to the door. He held the screen open for Renda, saying, “You generally sign the voucher on the bar, don’t you? Why take extra steps?” Renda said nothing. He walked past Demery into the adobe. Demery followed him, turning to wink at Karla before the screen closed behind him.

Karla walked toward the shed now. As she reached the corner of the adobe, Brazil, still mounted, called, “Don’t get too close…one of them’s liable to grab you.” He grinned at her, cradling the Winchester in the crook of his arm and took out tobacco to make a cigarette.

The man in the wagon bed, a tall, gaunt-faced dark-bearded convict, his hands on his hips, looked down at her. “That wouldn’t be so bad, would it?”

Karla said nothing. She looked away indifferently, but gradually her eyes returned to the convict wearing number 18.

He lifted a bundle of pick handles over the side-board, then leaned against a support post, removing his hat. As Karla watched, she saw it: his hair light brown though it appeared darker, wet with perspiration. His features were even, features that were almost soft, yet distinctive and would be easily remembered. Part of his forehead was a white band that the sun had not reached and it contrasted vividly with the deep tan of his jaw line.

Karla turned, hearing the screen door again. Renda was saying something as they approached. Then, as they drew nearer, she heard her father say, “They got here about suppertime yesterday.”

“If I’d known,” Renda said, “I could’ve picked them up last night.”

“Do you think,” Demery asked, “I should have ridden all the way up to tell you?”

“You could’ve sent Karla.”

“Look,” Demery stated. “You pay five dollars more freight costs and it’s delivered right to your door.”

Renda shook his head. “Willis figured this way was cheaper.”

“Was he sober when he figured it?”

Renda smiled now. “That’s no way to talk about our superintendent. Willis Falvey knows his figures.”

Karla asked, “And how does Mrs. Falvey like living at a convict camp?”

“Lizann?” Renda said with mock surprise. “Why Lizann likes it up there fine.” He would have said more, but Brazil called out to him-

“Frank! I’m sitting in the sun while you pass the time of day!”

“There’s a man that’s all business,” Renda said. He motioned the two convicts onto the wagon, then called to Brazil, “Let’s go!” He walked past Demery and Karla and mounted his chestnut mare. From the saddle he said, “Karla, we’ll visit awhile the next time you bring the mail.”

He reined the mare and rode straight out from the adobe to meet the wagon making a wide, slow turn to head back toward the willows.

For a moment Karla and her father watched the wagon in silence. Finally Karla said, “Did you ask him?”

Demery nodded, still watching the wagon as it drew near the willows. “I asked him.”

“What did he say?”

“Enough so you won’t have to write Lyall.” Demery looked at his daughter then. “A year ago he was convicted of cattle rustling and tried at Prescott. He’s already spent nine months in Yuma. He’s been here three months and he’s got six years to go of a seven-year sentence. That, Sis, is the nice-looking boy you have the warm feeling for.”

For a moment Karla said nothing. Then, “And his name?”

“Corey Bowen,” her father answered.